Posted in: TV | Tagged: drag race, rupaul

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 Ep. 6 Review: A Very Salty Sea Ball

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 17 Ep. 6 offered a very salty sea ball: work gets sabotaged, feelings get hurt, and the looks are (sea) sickening.

MTV's RuPaul's Drag Race always shows out when it comes to balls, and this season is no exception. The queens were tasked with three runway looks: bathing beauties, sea creature couture (where they had to create a look inspired by an actual sea creature), and the main challenge of the week: sea-sickening eleganza, where they had to create a look using materials found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There are a lot of looks in this episode, so let's dive right into it (are you sick of my sea puns yet?)

Our Top Queens:

Arrietty – Knowing that production has the photos of every queen's runway looks they brought for the season and can potentially take that into account when eliminating queens, her save last week makes absolute sense, knowing two of her looks were coming up literally the next week. The whole riggery of the show is like some kind of Rube Goldberg machine with a million complex moving parts that all affect what the next one does, and it's impressive. Regardless of how we saw her looks, Miss Arrietty turned out this week, and each of her looks was more sickening than the next. She made all of them, but her garbage patch coral reef couture number she made for the challenge? Perfection.

Sam Star – Her garbage gown would have won the bag ball, and almost won this ball – her look gave full-on found materials for the garbage look, and I always appreciate when queens don't go for the most fabric-like materials in the unconventional materials design challenge. She did use a tarp as a base, but as where Lexi Love had hers exposed and draped like fabric, Sam covered hers in stuffed plastic garbage bags and turned herself into "the first lady of litter-land" and it was delightful. She looked like Martha May Whovier from The Grinch movie, married the Grinch, and moved to Mr. Crumpit right next to the garbage dump. Met Gala themed "one planet, one love" that makes a statement on plastic in our oceans. And her Viperfish look? OBSESSED.

Crystal Envy – Her Barbie look was something we've seen several times, but the puffer fish and garbage look felt complete and elevated the first look. The look she created reminded me of Katya's All Stars 2 Latex look, with that swimwear wiggle gown that she could barely walk in, but it was fabulous. She delighted me this week, and her looks were fashionable enough without being trendy or dated in a bad way.

Our Bottom Queens:

Hormona Lisa – It's no secret I strongly dislike everything about Hormona this season – her arrogant attitude, underwhelming generic drag, general disregard for rules and the status quo, and, quite frankly, lack of talent should have sent her home the first episode. That lever was wrong,g and we've been subjected to her vile vibes for six whole episodes. Wrong lever!

Lana Ja'Rae – Clearly, Law Roach's comment about her lacking confidence was weighted heavily because that's the main critique of the week for her, and it's true. That, alongside her relying on her model body – got old about four episodes ago. Yes yes, you're sickening, but please this is Drag Race season 17, wear more than a tiny string bikini, flat hair, and no body on the runway, PLEASE. I'm surprised we didn't see Michelle Visage read her to filth for that, but there's no reason to kick a queen when she's down.

Acacia Forgot – I already forgot all three of her looks. The bottom here isn't undeserved, but clearly, Hormona vs Lana needed to happen. Count your days, queen; we're just not seeing much from Acacia to make her stand out in this competition, and six episodes in, that's problematic.

And for the big exciting gag of the episode: Lana and Hormona lip-synced to Olivia Rodrigo's "Get Him Back," which is one the absolute certified bops from Guts and, honestly, a whole vibe. It's a great lip-sync song, and all the haters who are complaining about it are just old and waving their canes around, screaming about the "newfangled music the kids listen to." Go back to your boring 80s power ballad lip-syncs and quit complaining about music from this generation, grannies. Obviously, Lana crushed it, and FINALLY, Hormona Lisa is sent packing for good, with basically a "bye Felicia" from RuPaul, and it's about time – way past time, actually.

Some Notable Looks:

Jewels Sparkles is giving Jorgeous this episode especially – I'm not sure if it's the face or the body or the bikini look but she stepped out on the runway and I'm like "hellotus"? I'm not mad about it, btw.

Kori King was delightful this runway with her nod to Katy Perry's iconic Super Bowl "Left Shark" performance – more of this, please, it's funny and cute (although still a bit lackluster).

Can I just say, brave opinion time, I'm bored of Lexi Love. Not even factoring in attitude or drama, which is very hit or miss and could just be the edit, her looks all seem to be 2000s-esque runway fashion inspired, and not even in an exciting or iconic way. It's like the producers tried to cast another Sasha Colby but failed to realize that one, mother is literally irreplaceable, and everything else just feels like a cheap imitation, and two, you need a damn good track record and a long legacy to be able to earn that attitude, and Lexi just isn't there.

Her drag and overall vibe feel utterly generic in the same way the "camp queens" can often feel like cookie-cutter versions of each other. I cannot figure out why everyone is gagging over her and all predictions have her either as a finalist or winning. It's great, but it's not really drag – turn out and prove me wrong, queen. Give me DRAG and lose the attitude, especially if you're pretending to be the mature one this season.

And Now For More (Undersea) Drama Starring Lexi Love:

"Spraypaint gate" is a thing, and as stupid as it is, I have to bring it up. Lexi freaked the f*** out when she came outside and saw that someone spray painted on her tarp that she was using for the skirt of her garbage look. Tbh, it was a complete overreaction to an accident, especially on Onya Nerve, who didn't want to get her head snapped off at the moment and was trying to figure out how to tell her. TL;DR, it feels like the producers are fanning the flames of ridiculous petty drama this season with comically oversized bellows like they're Wile E. Coyote or something.

In the end, Lexi's look was fine (although she was super salty she was just safe – that's what you get for draping a tarp over a bra and wearing a Cher wig) and it literally would not have affected anything paint or no paint, but she fixed it with leaf designs and admitted she overreacted. Kind of a lackluster ending to the drama, but at least it's over.

Next week is the Snatch Game and it should be interesting – though I do wonder how many queens will flop as this cast doesn't seem to be stacked with a lot of gifted impressionists.

RuPaul's Drag Race season 17 airs on MTV on Friday nights.

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